


Arcturus Sleeps...

by The Poet of Deimos (Kkharrin)



Series: Midea [2]
Category: Red Rising Trilogy - Pierce Brown
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Timeline, Alternate World State, Gen, Gore, Mideanverse AU, Morning Star, Violence, golden son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6223417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kkharrin/pseuds/The%20Poet%20of%20Deimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mideanverse was born back when Golden Son had just come out. <a href="http://victra-au-julii.tumblr.com/">Victra</a> and I started thinking about Morning Star could end, what could happen, who would go which way. As it turns out our suppositions were broadly wrong excepting one thing but it did leave us with an interesting alternate world state that we still have plenty of stories for. </p>
<p>A Library of the current Mideanverse work can be found <a href="http://silentstradivarius.tumblr.com/post/140548499151/midean-verse-au">here</a> , including the original tumblr post for this work. </p>
<p>You can think of 'Arcturus Sleeps...' sitting some time after the 'fall' of the Aureate, a time when Golds had separated in separate groups, those allied with Darrow and those allied with other Gold supremacists, the Mideans. </p>
<p>But I won't ramble on too long, I think the fic itself explains everything else. Please enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arcturus Sleeps...

Cassius’ gravBooted foot drives into the centre of my chest. The glass behind me shatters and I plummet through, falling 50ft to the hard marble below. Not even my reinforced Gold bones can stand this, I feel my leg snap with a sharp crack and curl my hands around my face, gasping with the shock. 

Cassius follows me, dropping gently on gravBoots, his gold cloak flowing behind him. 

He looks like a God. 

To all intents and purposes he is one. 

‘You fought hard for a Red, Darrow.’ Cassius’ feet barely make a sound as he lands, sheathing his Razor with a lazy flick of his wrist. 

The light behind leaves a halo around his curls. He is the epitome of gold, he is their savior. 

Now he comes for me. 

‘I do not use Razors on mere Reds.’ He says by way of explanation, taking another slow step to me, rictused on the floor. 

‘Your death, the death of your Red’s will pay for my losses.’ He spits this, a brief moment of madness visible behind his eyes. 

I remember the feeling as my fist had crushed Julian’s sternum and I wonder whether that it what he intends to do to me. 

He takes another step, his body shaking with his anger and I feel certain that soon this will all be over. 

I close my eyes and think of the Vale.

Death does not come. 

I open my eyes to a streak of white.

Roque is a tall figure, his Imperator’s armour a harsh white against the grey sky, blood already streaking his chestplate. His razor is bare in his hand.

‘Stand down, my goodman.’ His voice holds a deadly edge. 

I watch from my position on the floor, desperately trying to force myself up onto my hands. I feel sick as I see Cassius draw his ion blade, expression unrepentant. 

‘You know it’s gone too far for that.’ Cassius shakes his head, a touch of sadness seeping into the edges of his golden eyes. ‘He dies, this is all over.’ 

‘But it won’t be, Cassius.’ I see that Roque’s position has changed subtly. He has adopted a fighting stance, his chin lifted, feet placed apart. The razor glints in his grip. Cassius’ expression holds a hint of derision. 

‘Who knows, brother. I have to try.’ 

Cassius’ hand snaps forward, seeking to strike Roque’s neck, but he drops out of range, activating his aegis with a dull thrum. The Ion blade clashes against the electric shield with a shower of sparks. Cassius steps forward again as if expecting Roque to flinch, yet instead he dashes out with razor, using his aegis to keep the ion blade from him. 

I have never seen Roque fight. He was never in my vanguard, always a tactician. I always knew there must have been something dangerous about him, but I was not expecting this. 

I begin to see how he must have bested Priam. He is brutal, hellish in his intensity, rage visible in every line of his body. He dances like a razor, even Cassius becoming flustered with his speed. But he is not strong, the cuts he lands swipe across armour, leaving burns but little else. His leg, injured at the Institute all those years ago, is not as strong as the other despite all the Carvers’ attempts and I see him stumble, heart in my throat. 

A sudden stab of sharp pain rips through my leg and a double up, only hearing Roque’s muffled cry. 

When I look up, blood oozes from a gash in the shoulder of his shield arm, splatters over the back of his cloak, dripping heavily onto the white marble. 

I can’t explain the fear that takes me, wondering whether in front of my eyes Cassius will cut him to a bleeding carcass. But then Roque hits Cassius with the full force of his fist; punching him directly in the face so his head rocks back, blood pouring sluggishly from his nose. 

Cassius looks as shocked as I do. 

The Razor takes Cassius in the shoulder and he howls in pain, grappling with Roque, all the grace of moments before disappearing.

Roque’s fingers are like pincers on Cassius’ shoulders, I see them driving into the skin so hard that it draws small pearls of blood. 

They struggle, trying to catch one another behind the knee, both gasping with exertion.

Roque’s dark hair is slick against the sides of his face. He snarls and, in an altogether unexpected move, head butts Cassius full in the face. The shorter Gold flounders in his grasp, hissing as the skin splits on his forehead. 

Blood fills the air; I can smell it even from here. Neither have set their weapons to cauterize, they want the other to bleed; they want the other to die. They continue their dance; striking, stepping back, slashing. This deadly dance that seems to have no end. 

Both are dripping with sweat, Roque’s white armour covered in gore, Cassius’ golden hair matted with blood. Both yell in pain, not words, just ragged exhalations of rage. 

Yet as time passes, Cassius’s movements become more measured; he is watching Roque, waiting for what he sees as the inevitable stumble. Blood pours down around his eyes but somehow he is becoming calm.

I see Roque falter and swear under my breath. He takes a single step back and Cassius strikes. 

A red mist erupts around Roque’s head.

He roars, ripping his fingers into Cassius’ cloak, driving the razor deep into his chest. 

Cassius flounders, his ion blade dropping from his grasp, fingers scrabbling around the hilt of Roque’s razor. 

The Imperator grinds the razor between Cassius’ ribs, metal screaming against bone, twisting so viciously that the blade snaps. 

And then he takes a step back.

Cassius manages to stay standing for several painful seconds, blood gurgling from his mouth, eyes wide with the sharpness of his pain. Then he tumbles, falling boneless and heavy to the floor, head lapsing back. His golden curls tangle about his face, his mouth lax in an exhalation of pain. 

Cassius is dead. 

Roque is still upright somehow. His body sways, the hilt of the razor falling from his grasp. Then he collapses, hitting the ground hard, his hands skittering across the marble as he tries to bolster himself up. He is shaking violently; I can see it even from here. 

Pain burns through my leg. Just the thought of moving makes me want to vomit, but somehow I find the will. 

I drag myself to his side, hand over hand, crying with the pain, finding somewhere in me the strength to sit up. 

Roque’s head is bowed; he is breathing in shallow panicked gasps, injuries visible over his entire body. He flinches at my touch, turning his head wildly to try and find me. 

Cassius’s ion blade has left a chasm where his eyes should have been. Blood covers his cheeks, running in thick lines to the edge of his mouth. 

‘It’s me, it’s ok, it’s me.’ I whisper and he grabs me, clutching tight at my cloak, in too much pain to even speak. 

His fingers are covered in Cassius’ blood, but they reach out for me. 

I let him touch my face, feeling his body wracked with tremors as he presses the pads to my cheekbones. He begins to sob, tears running down the left side of his face from a single intact tear duct. 

Mindful of his injuries I hold him close, circling my arms around him, drawing him to my chest. I find myself thinking back to the Institute, remembering holding him after the final battle, frail and grieving. 

His sobs strengthen as his arms rise to clutch at me. I feel his lips, pressed against my shoulder, open in a silent scream and I find myself crying, my hand pressed to the back of his neck, gently running through his hair. 

We sit there intertwined, crying, agony ripping through our broken bodies. I do not even notice when the Howlers arrive. 

In my mind I am only a small child in Lykos. 

\--

I do not wake for two weeks. 

I have been told that Mustang sits by my bedside the entire time. She breaks into desperate tears as I stir. I am sorry that I am not entirely there to greet her. 

Somewhere inside me is someone that could speak to her, but I am Darrow of Lykos and all I can do is cry. 

We have no carvers. Gold does not quite hold the authority it once did. In the future we will work together but for now the yellows will not help us. Some of the others that are still loyal to us have some rudimentary healer’s training. It is a pink that set my leg and a gray who kept Roque from bleeding out on the operating table. 

Eventually, I have enough strength to attempt to walk with crutches, Mustang’s worried eyes on me at all times, ready to catch me should I stumble. She should not have to worry about this. Her abdomen swells, blooming with new life. I don’t want her to have to catch me.

The first time I visit Roque he does not know I am there. He lies under a glass shell, his face bound with gauze, a root system of tubes entering his body. He is in a medically induced coma, cannot even breathe on his own. I hear later that his heart stopped on the operating table. That he is lucky to be alive. 

I try to walk the gardens everyday. As time passes I find a little of my voice. Mustang walks with me when she feels well enough. On other days Sevro will be my companion. He is the same vulgar Sevro but he is quiet with me, worried, as if afraid I will wither and die. 

I am in the habit of visiting Roque every morning and evening. I watch for the removal of lines, for any sign that he is improving. Slowly the machines recede, the glass sheet is drawn back and his chest rises and falls with his own breath. 

It is a shock for me when one evening I arrive to see him sitting up. His face is still bound, only his nose and lips visible beneath the bandages, but his head is turned towards the window. As if he is seeing something that I am not. 

‘You might as well come in Darrow.’ His voice is ragged, his head turning straight to me. It is unnerving. 

I make my way across to him, my crutches clicking against the white marble floor and take a seat at the bedside. He sits with his back perfectly straight, his hands resting on one another. He looks strong, but I notice the tremor in his fingers. 

‘How do you feel?’ I ask, my voice equally ragged. 

He smiles an ironic smile, turning his head away from me once more. It is all the answer I need. 

We sit in silence for a good twenty minutes. I find myself staring at him. Seeing how thin his body has become, how pronounced his cheekbones are under the gauze. His lips are slightly parted, the same full beautiful lips as always. I remember the blood pouring down into this mouth. I remember the frantic panic of those first few moments of blindness. 

He says nothing, does not move. His chest barely rises as he breathes. It is almost as if he is not there at all. 

Outside the window it is night. Stars spark in the sky far above. Somehow the window holds Roque’s attention. 

Without his eyes, I find that I cannot tell what he is thinking. 

He sighs heavily, adjusting his shaking fingers in his lap. His head dips. 

‘Stars…stars all around.’ He whispers finally. ‘Yet all I see is dark.’


End file.
